


You Are The Sunlight In My Growing

by ambitiousbutrubbish



Series: What Is The Most Basic Article Of Faith? This Is Not All That We Are. [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Established Relationship, M/M, Post-Season/Series 05, Probably ooc, Romance, because at one point in his life this dean has had a single emotionally honest conversation, literally this is nearly 8500 words of just 'dean loves cas so much you guys', writer is a cas girl on main and this is very obvious
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-19
Updated: 2021-03-19
Packaged: 2021-03-28 16:27:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30142332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ambitiousbutrubbish/pseuds/ambitiousbutrubbish
Summary: Cas justsaysshit, like, “stars died to make you, Dean Winchester”, his hand on Dean’s cheek, and Dean’s pretty sure that what he means is “I literally destroyed stars to rebuild you after raising you from hell, and I’d do it again”.Cas is A Lot, and Dean loves it.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Series: What Is The Most Basic Article Of Faith? This Is Not All That We Are. [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2218506
Comments: 2
Kudos: 45





	You Are The Sunlight In My Growing

**Author's Note:**

> Thumps the roof the car like “this character piece masquerading as a fic can fit so many headcanons in it”.
> 
> Set in some non-specific time after season 5, which is about the point when I stopped watching the show week-to-week. Genuinely I do think of post-season 5 Supernatural as a different show with different characters, and it's not a show I like. After season 5 I really only watched the Cas episodes because even though they constantly disrespected him, I still had a lingering affection for his face and also the character that he had been in seasons 4 and 5. And then they essentially had him raped and murdered and played it off as a joke about him finally “getting some” (OG heterosexual show Supernatural, you’re so funny and heterosexual) and that was the point I quit watching for good, totally cold turkey, haven’t watched even so much as a clip since. So, basically none of the plot after season 5 is canon here, but I do reference some of the characters between seasons 6 to the third episode of season 9. I guess they live in the bunker (which, honestly originally I thought I watched all of seasons 6-8 but I have been kind of peripherally aware of the show since I stopped watching because, like, I exist on the internet and so I sort of knew they lived in a bunker somewhere and I googled it to find out when that happened and it was in season 8?? And I didn’t remember that at all?? And then I looked at some of the other episodes from season 8 and then 6 and 7 and I remember basically none of those, either. So yeah). Also, apparently Sam has a girlfriend called Eileen? So she’s here too I guess. Good for Sam.
> 
> Also, I heard DeanCas went canon specifically so they could do some bury your gays and ignore it completely and then is for real canon in Spanish and French. So congrats on the canon DeanCas to anyone who stuck it out ’til the end, I guess! 
> 
> I wrote this because my parents and my grandma binge watched 14 seasons of Supernatural when they were in lockdown and my mum sent me a photo of a jigsaw puzzle of Sam and Dean for no reason I can figure out and I was just suddenly hit with this huge wave of love for Cas that had apparently lived rent free in the back of my head since I was 15.

Dean’s driving away from Stull Cemetery, away from the pit to hell that his little brother threw himself into to save the world. And he’s empty, he’s _nothing_ , he’s stumbling blindly towards a life he doesn’t want, and a woman he doesn’t know and who doesn’t know him, and if she had any sense she’d tell him to fuck off. But he promised Sam.

There's an angel sitting beside him in the passenger seat, and he’d been dead and came back and for one clear, shining moment Dean had thought that Cas was _God_ , and that had felt more true than anything that had happened to him in years. But he’s just an angel and he can’t bring Sam back and he’s just going to leave Dean, too, just like everyone leaves him. Just like being _left_ is all he’s ever known.

Dean says something about Cas being the new sheriff of heaven and he doesn’t even hear what Cas says back. There’s a black hole inside of him and it’s sucking in everything except “don’t leave me” and “you’re going to leave me” and “you’re going to leave me like everyone else”. And Dean’s going to let Cas go, because he’s not worth Cas staying around for because he _promised Sam_ ; and because he’s already dead himself, he’s just going through through the motions and he’s going to be going through the motions for the rest of his miserable life. Cas deserves better than that. Cas _is_ better than that. Heaven needs him, and what is Dean next to Cas’ duty? So he’s going to let Cas go, and Cas is going to wing off to heaven, and that will be it. 

And then: Dean does the hardest thing he’s ever done in his life.

He breaks his promise to Sam. He says “or you could stay?”

And Cas stares at him.

And Cas says “okay”.

********************

Dean’s got his own room these days. The kind of shit you’d brag about to your friends in elementary school. But, Dean never actually had friends in elementary school. And also, he didn’t have his own room. So he’s decided to just be inordinately proud for a grown-ass man about having a bedroom that’s _his_. 

Well, his Cas’, but that’s a whole other thing. Like, hey, me and my long term partner have our _own room_. That’s just not something you brag about; ever. Really should be a given. Except for when you’re Dean. And you’ve never had a place to settle down in. And you’ve spent most what little childhood you had and almost all of your adult life living out of motel rooms with your little brother in the next bed over. And you’ve always told yourself dirty, anonymous rooms with mysterious stains and funky smells and mattresses that make you wake up with a headache and aching muscles are all that you deserve. 

Except for then.

But now Dean’s got something just for him. He’s got his own room. He’s got Cas.

And Cas is there when he goes to sleep, Dean tucked in against his shoulder, his neck, Dean’s arm wrapped around his waist. He’s there when Dean wakes up, sometimes playing around with his phone, sometimes with his head turned to the side so he can stare at Dean’s face as he sleeps, eyes soft, always just where Dean left him. Dean asked him once if he ever got bored just lying there and Cas told him that he literally never gets bored. That’s a goddamn lie as far as Dean is concerned, because left alone for more than five seconds Cas will start _fiddling_ with things and opening cabinets or boxes or whatever is around. He just never gets bored of _Dean_. Which is– a lot to think about, sometimes. That Cas finds him genuinely interesting, and not just a weapon to point in the direction of monsters. 

Sometimes when Dean blinks awake and shifts a little so he can look at him better, Cas has his eyes closed and his chest rises and falls like he’s breathing and Dean doesn’t remember it, but he knows Cas has been wandering through his dreams. It should feel like a violation, having someone in his head, inside every unconscious thought he has. It doesn’t.

Cas is there when Dean takes a shower or cooks a meal or watches television; content to share in the mundane parts of Dean’s little human life, eyes soft and smile slow and easy. And living with someone not his brother, doing the cooking and the cleaning and driving to the supermarket where the cashiers know his name and all that shit; Dean thought it would make him feel like some 1950s housewife, keeping the home fire burning or whatever. But it doesn’t. It feels– good. Strangely rebellious. His dad would fucking hate to see it - Dean and domesticity and a _dude_. It feels like every scrap of fate in the universe was trying to keep him from having this, but Dean got it anyway.

And sure, he can’t take Cas out with him when they’re at home, because they don’t want the neighbours to wonder why he never ages. It won’t even be that long and people will be looking at Dean and thinking ‘creepy old man who doesn’t realise that his younger boyfriend is only with him for the money’. Not that Cas is exactly some twink or anything like that, because Jimmy was pretty firmly in his 30s and a little rough around the edges when he said “yes”, and Cas has flipped between human and angel so many times that he’s been ageing on and off since they’ve known each other. But, Dean doesn’t need the eyes on him, doesn’t need to be paranoid in his own town. 

That doesn't mean they don’t sit across from each other in diners all across the continental US, knees nudging up against each other under too small tables, Dean stealing Cas’ fries because he doesn’t eat food unless Dean made it for him, but he needs to order something to keep up appearances. 

It doesn’t mean that Dean doesn’t wait for night to fall to drive them outside of the town limits, until there’s no light pollution on the horizon. And Baby’s not really built for off-roading, but she can handle a gravel track or a grassy shoulder just fine when Dean parks her somewhere away from other traffic. Her hood’s big enough for two grown men to lounge on, legs stretched out in front and backs against her windshield so they can look up at the stars. When Dean presses up against him, Cas smells like the moment just before the rain falls and the storm breaks on a humid day; sweet and earthy, like dirt and ozone and new grass, and just a little like salt, a little metallic, a little like _relief_. In one of his more embarrassing moments, Dean had looked it up. It’s called petrichor, and he’d spent a few hours watching storm chasing videos afterward, trying to push the search far enough back in his history that no one would notice it. And when Dean turns his face away from the sky so he can tuck his cold nose into Cas’ neck, lips on his shoulder, he gets the lingering hint of Dean’s Old Spice, and the watermelon candy-scented shampoo that Cas likes to use when Dean talks him into sharing a shower; which is every time he asks. 

Dean _almost_ wishes he had more time to do all that normal shit; more time for him and Cas to just sit around and exist near each other, nothing more expected of them. More time for them just to be quiet, skin pressed together, casual and solid and warm. Only almost. He’s pretty damn happy with what he has. If he’s honest with himself, he doesn’t even know what he’d do with a normal relationship. He’d probably be bad at it, always waiting for the other shoe to drop. Probably panic. Probably throw two changes of clothes and as many weapons as he could fit into the back of the Impala and drive and drive as far away as he could get and be miserable and lonely forever, never again touched as gently and carefully as the way that Cas touches him, because he couldn’t stand it if anyone else tried. Those long fingers dancing lightly up and down his ribs, barely making dents in the places that his body is becoming softer from good food and not constantly running for his life; those fingers _need_ to be Cas’.

Because even though they have those normal people times, sometimes Cas does leave. Sometimes he flits off to answer prayers, quick in and out. He can’t interfere with free will, but if there’s something happening that’s outside of human control then he might be willing to give it a little nudge. And all hunters know that they can pray to Castiel, Angel of the Lord if they’re in a tight spot and need someone to burn out a monster and save their ass. Just so long as it’s not between the hours of 11pm and 7am without fair waring that it might happen. Dean didn’t help save the world multiple times just to unexpectedly wake up alone. 

But sometimes, it’s more than that. A desperate prayer, a cry for help; those will drag Cas away for an hour or so at absolute most. But sometimes, Cas gets– well, if Dean were being flippant, he’d call it _twitchy_. The proverbial climbing walls, and Cas probably _could_ climb a wall if he felt like it, which is a weird thought. But it’s not quite _it_. Because yeah, Cas will occasionally pace, or tap restless patterns on every surface within reach. But ‘twitchy’ doesn’t explain the way that sometimes he’ll look at Cas, and Cas isn’t quite there. Doesn’t explain the way his eyes loose focus like he’s looking through the walls and dirt that surround them, or the way he’ll drift almost unconsciously towards the bunker door, fingers brushing over the doorhandle before he comes back to himself. Doesn’t explain the way that Dean will sometimes catch Cas looking at _travel websites_ like he’s some bored mom who’s dreaming of the day her kids get old enough to leave home and she can finally get out and go places. 

And, like, Dean has always known and accepted that Cas isn’t human. Even the times when he was - or was as good as, as far as he could be - he wasn’t. Because humans are resigned to the human condition even if they hate it, and every time Cas had Fallen or been forcefully ejected into humanity, he’d fought like hell not to accept human limitations. Dean knows that Cas is _vast_ , in a way that defies his own ability to see or understand. He's a wavelength, squashing itself down into a tiny human body, barely contained and crackling just under the surface to be let free. Dean had asked if it had hurt, once. Cas had tried to explain but it had turned into some physics shit that had made Dean want to go brain himself with one of the bunker’s more esoteric science books for the dramatic irony. The short answer was no, but also that he wasn’t always comfortable having to occupy a human form, having to look human. And Cas has _wings_. Cas isn’t meant to be cooped up underground, in a bunker where you can’t even look out a window and see the sun and the sky. He isn’t even meant to be on _Earth_. Not really. 

But, Dean also knows that Cas stays for him, because he wants to be with him, and because this is Dean’s home so Cas makes it his own as well. 

One day - and if Dean has anything to say about it, not for many, _many_ days - they can live together in Heaven instead. But until then, when Cas gets restless Dean kisses him on the top of the head like he’s giving him benediction, holds both his hands tightly, and tells him to go.

And Cas smiles like a human really _can_ grant an angel a blessing. 

********************

Dean doesn’t miss him when he’s gone. Or, well, he _does_ , of course he does. He thinks about Cas pretty much constantly whenever they’re apart. He misses Cas in his _dreams_ , sometimes, when Cas is not Walking in them along side him. Eileen talked Sam into seeing a psych and it really does seem to be doing wonders for him, but Dean had scoffed when she’d suggested the same for him. He doesn’t need to fork out a stupid amount of money to have some douchebag with a degree tell him that he’s got abandonment issues. He’s well aware. 

But it’s not painful, not like it used to be, when he was always, _always_ worried that Castiel would finally realise that he was too good to be slumming it in the mud with the humans. But Cas likes the dirt. It’s living; nothing can grow without it.

It’s almost a pleasant ache; the anticipation of seeing him again. Just a little twinge every now and then, when he looks around and Cas isn’t hovering nearby. Mostly he just talks out loud and knows Cas will hear him wherever he is, and it’s like he’s just in the next room over, listening along. 

And sometimes Dean will see something and wish that Cas was there so he could point it out to him and see if he can coax out one of Cas’ still all-to-rare smiles. These days Cas smiles more in a week than Dean thinks he ever saw him in the years before. It’s settled nicely on his face, wide and easy and a little gummy, not something he has has to imitate anymore. But it’s never enough, for Dean.

So sometimes Dean will see something he thinks Cas would like, and he’ll snap a quick picture and send it to him. It’s easily the most Dean has ever used his phone camera outside of anything case-related. He never got into sexing or any of that shit. It’s nice to actually be touched. Sue him. And anyway, Cas _likes_ texting. He’s honestly pretty bad at it, forgets to reply for days at a time and then sends back one word answers. But he likes it. He uses a lot of emojis, and tells Dean that he always admired the written text of the Ancient Egyptians. Which, Dean’s pretty sure he’s messing with him, that Cas just enjoys the way that Dean rolls his eyes at him in fond exasperation, but it can be hard to tell, sometimes. Cas’ sense of humour is _weird_. 

It’s sort of like talking to Claire, and hearing her reference some internet meme that makes no sense to Dean even after she’s explained it. And Dean only puts up with that because it’s a miracle that Claire even wants to talk to them at all, and he knows how much it means to Cas that she does reach out on occasion. Dean doesn’t really get it. She should hate them. It would make more sense if she hated them. They stole her father from her. Because Cas may have been the one possessing Jimmy’s body, but Sam and Dean had been the ones who’d followed him around hoping Cas would take him back. It wasn’t fair, cruel even; and Jimmy had seemed like a nice guy, a good dad whose family had clearly loved him, and Dean had been _glad_ when Cas came back and stole him away from all of that. But not before he had _posessed_ Claire, a little girl barely in her double digits. It’s so fucked up, Dean doesn’t know where to start even thinking about it. Claire should _hate_ them. And instead she texts him totally incomprehensible, slightly blurry pictures of cats, and advice from her therapist. Dean doesn’t know how Amelia Novak is doing it, but Claire is pretty well adjusted for a kid who knows there is a literal angel running about out there in the body of her dead dad, looking just slightly older than her father ever got to be. Maybe not on first glance, but certainly on second, when she must do a double take and wonder for a second if they gave him back. If Amelia ever decides that actually she doesn’t want to stay far away from anything supernatural forever, Dean is going to link her in with Jody. They’d save a lot of kid’s lives. 

Claire has told him how it had felt being possessed. How mostly what she remembers beyond her own fear is that Cas had been lost and confused and _terrified_ ; more than half out of his mind with emotions he wasn’t created to even have, let alone understand. Being ripped apart and becoming something wholly new, something even God hadn’t anticipated. Cas had been even more scared than she had, because she had been so certain, so full of faith that an angel had come to save her family. And Cas had been tortured by the only home he ever knew and then spat back out. And neither off them had _really_ known exactly what it was he was asking of her. 

And now; she linked Sam up with her therapist, and she calls Cas to talk through her geography homework. It’s good to know that there’s at least one kid out there whose life wasn’t ruined by falling into their orbit. And if she does ring twice a year, on her birthday and on Jimmy’s, Dean doesn’t hear what she says, just that she screams and screams, and Cas takes those calls alone on the roof of the bunker and stays up there for the rest of the day. Dean only knows he’s still there because he can hear the storm outside, the thunder and the lighting as Cas takes everything Claire has to throw at him and knows he doesn’t have a leg to stand on in defence of himself. Incidentally, not a small chunk of the network they’re building are hunters that turned up in the area because of strange weather events over Lebanon, Kansas at the same time every year without fail.

So, Cas’ jokes are like Claire’s memes, except exactly the opposite of them because Cas laughs at shit from millions of years ago that would baffle experts in their field. If Dean were much interested in history beyond ‘were there cowboys?’ and ‘has anyone killed this monster before?’, he could write several groundbreaking thesis on anything from Ancient Sumerian innuendo to dinosaur bonding rituals to the single cell amoebas that the Archangel Gabriel had coaxed into lewd shapes, long before what they were representing had actually been created. Cas once told some long, meandering story about a shepherd and his sheep and some long-defunct farming implement that Dean had never heard of being somewhere it shouldn’t, and he’d laughed so hard he couldn’t get through it. Dean has no idea what the joke actually was, but it’s his favourite one ever told.

And Dean is used to getting blank looks because most kids weren’t raised by motel room TV, seedy people at laundromats and bored late-night supermarket employees. But Cas has a frame of reference that’s unimaginably large and almost no ability to casually bring up anything he knows, and he has thoroughly overtaken Dean in receiving ‘what the fuck?’ looks from strangers. It’s kind of nice, people looking at him like _he’s_ the normal one for a change. 

But it’s even nicer to be looking at Cas across a sticky window table and to have Cas looking back at him, and some poor waitress standing by waiting to take their order and having to pretend that she didn’t hear them talking about a vampire or a werewolf because there's no way that’s what they actually meant. And knowing that in the whole diner, they’re the only two people that understand each other.

********************

There had been a brief moment in time when Dean had hoped that Cas would give up his Grace and choose to live as a human. But that– that was about _him_ , not Cas. Because every time Cas had Fallen, had lost his Grace, was because it was stolen from him, taken by force and not by choice. And yeah Cas chose humanity, and Dean knows without having to ask he’d do it again in the heartbeat that he only has because Dean likes to listen to it and, well, the fact that Cas _gave himself_ a heartbeat - something so small and useless and nothing he would have ever thought of on his own - for the sole purpose of making Dean comfortable is how he knows Cas would chose humanity every time. He’d just prefer to do it as an angel. What good is free will if you can’t hold on tight to everything you want, anyway?

But still; there had been a point where Dean had hoped Cas would be human for good, when he had been so afraid that angels couldn’t _feel_. And Cas had definitely felt things when he’d been human, but. He hadn’t been _Cas_ , then. Not really. He’d been a guy that looked like Cas and sounded like Cas and thought like Cas and had all of his memories, but he wasn’t Cas. Like fucking Multiplicity. Like Sam when he had been soulless; Cas’ Grace is an essential part of him. It’s what he _is_. And Cas deserves to be appreciated and _loved_ for who he has always been. 

And Dean does. Love him. 

Even when he had thought that Cas could never love him back, because he just wasn’t made for it. Not didn’t. _Couldn’t_. Even when he had thought Cas simply wasn’t Created with the right parts to experience those emotions, that it would break him in some fundamental way if he did; Dean loved him. And he knew that Cas cared for him, would die for him, _did_ die for him and Sam both. That Cas cared for him in a way that he wasn’t supposed to, a way his siblings considered strange and embarrassing and in need of correction. Dean doesn’t think angels are capable of homophobia, because as far as he can tell gender is largely theoretical to them, and sexuality is somewhat of an abstract concept. They don’t object to Dean being a man - and even if they did Cas isn’t exactly a man himself but that’s a whole other kettle of fish. But they do object to him being a Man. Capital M. Of the hu- variety. Because contrary to popular belief, Dean actually has read the Bible. Bits of it, anyway. He’s spent enough time in hotel rooms with nothing but a broken television and the old King James, and he’s skimmed through. So he knows that angels and humans hooking up is a big no. _The_ big no. So whatever the angelic equivalent of homophobia is, almost all of Cas’ entire species has it for him, and has had it _hard_ for almost as long as Dean has known him.

And it was enough; knowing that no matter what else Cas cared for him, keeping it all this unspoken tangle, knowing that he loved Cas and Cas chose to stay with him, even if it wasn’t exactly in the way that Dean wanted. Because Dean stopped believing in God and all that crap a long time ago. Angels weren’t watching over him, except that they kind of _were_ , if only to make sure he got sent to Hell. So Dean has no use for religion. But Cas is–. 

He has faith in Cas. He prays to _him_. Not to God. Not to Heaven and all its fuzzy little angels. Not to any of the myriad of deities and monsters that Dean knows are out there. 

To _Cas_. 

Cas taught him _faith_ , and even if Dean had only taught Cas doubt in return, the irony of all fucking ironies is that they came out of it believing in each other. 

Anyway, Cas does love him back. So. Dean supposes that he gets everything that he ever wanted, too.

********************

Every time Cas goes away, the bunker suddenly becomes the hub of the hunter social scene. 

Sam and Eileen always drop in within the hour of him texting and asking if they’ll visit. They’re never busy hunting or working or even out to dinner, and Dean can only assume that Cas lets them know when he’s leaving and to be prepared. Dean wouldd be insulted, but he’s mostly touched (by an angel - a joke that he _will_ keep making until Cas smiles at it) that Cas and Sammy are working together to make sure he’s looked after. Kick up an absolute stink if it was ever confirmed outright, but as long as they don’t talk about it then he can accept it. 

Sam’s got a standing room that Dean never touches while he’s not there, leaves it exactly as Sam left it every time he goes back to his own house, and Dean simply refuses to think of it as empty nesting. But the bunker has plenty of other spare rooms for hunters who happen to be in the area, who might be looking for books on lore or somewhere to hide or just don’t have the money to spend on a hotel room. Dean’s spent most of his life - from child to teen to adult - in the hunting community, but since he and Cas settled down from apocalypses and world-ending events he’s realised just how few hunters he knew compared to just how many are out there. Probably would’ve been real helpful to have known about them before. 

Kevin, Garth and Charlie will occasionally drop in on their monster nerd world tour. A prophet, a tech genius who hooked up with a fairy and a hunter who’s all about hugs and sock puppets - there’s no better example of the next generation of of hunters. The three of them have been out _networking_ , like hunting is an honest-to-God profession for any Tom, Dick or Harry. Dean had been writing down the phone numbers for hunters that they collect for him from around the world on scraps of paper he found around the bunker and constantly losing them, until Cas had gone out and bought him an honest-to-God Rolodex. He told Dean he saw it in a movie and handed it over with that small, proud smile he wears when he’s sure that he’s figured out something human all on his own, and Dean tossed Kevin to the nearest, dingiest motel he knew to spend the night the first time he saw it and burst out laughing. 

Dean has been slowly digitising the bunker’s library. He’s not exactly the most tech-savvy guy, but that’s more from not really wanting to learn rather than any ability not to. He knows how to fix a car and McGuyver an EFT reader, and once Sam showed him how to scan books onto his laptop he took to that quickly too. He’s been learning about camera angles and lighting and showing proportion in still images so he can take photos of the assortment of Objects just sitting all around him to put them online. Last time he stayed over Sam had joked about turning the collection of spell ingredients in the bunker into some kind of hunter grocery store. And Dean kept his mouth shut on saying that that was actually a pretty good idea, but Charlie has been building him a website so other hunters will know what they have available. Dean calls Bobby regularly to discuss how he should be categorising all the junk.

He’s never alone anymore. Too many people care about him.

********************

Cas comes home from his wanderings at odd hours. 

Dean knows for a fact that Cas understands things like circadian rhythms and private time and when it is and isn’t appropriate to just pop up in a place. Dean knows, because he’s taken great times to explain it to him, and Cas absolutely refuses to put it into practice.

He gets a kick out of it, Dean’s sure; fluttering into the bunker when Dean’s out grocery shopping, so he comes back to find Cas watching TV or chatting earnestly with some visiting hunter who’s watching him with stars in their eyes and one hand on a weapon. Then, Dean can sidle up to him, press their arms together, maybe tangle their fingers, and pretend like no more time had passed since they last saw each other than it took Dean to buy bread and milk and ammo. Or, winging in while Dean’s just pottering about the bunker doing mundane shit. He’s overcooked more than a few meals when Cas has strolled into the kitchen unannounced. Once Cas popped in while he was in the bathroom, his reflection suddenly staring at Dean from the mirror like some cliché horror movie ghost while Dean was brushing his teeth, and he nearly stabbed himself in the back of his throat with his toothbrush when he jumped in surprise. 

But if Dean’s picking a favourite, it’s when he’s curled up warm under the covers drifting between awake and asleep, and Cas crawls into bed behind him; an arm snaking around his waist and Cas whispering against his back, the nob at the top of his spine, his lips soft and wet against Dean’s skin. And Dean wraps Cas’ hand in his own drifts off to Cas’ voice telling stories of the places he’s been, the trees and the mountains and the stars. To the comfortable heat of Cas, like a low campfire on a cool night no matter the actual temperature, burning calm and steady

Cas promises that one day, when Dean’s just a soul and he doesn't have to worry about inconvenient things like breathing, that he will take him to every beautiful place he has visited, to every icecap and desert, to the very depths of the ocean. To whole other galaxies, to planets and supernovas and little balls of ice hurtling through space that no human has ever seen, and maybe _will_ never see with the looming threat of, like, climate change and shit. That's one apocalypse that Dean is leaving to someone else to solve.

And sometimes when Dean’s having a bad day he’ll find Cas where he’s sitting looking over some map or hunched over Dean’s laptop watching Netflix, and he’ll plant his hands firmly on his shoulders and bend down so he can bury his nose in his hair and just breath him in, all of his senses full of _Cas_ , tuned into him completely, and Cas will tell him that one day he’s going to put Dean up among the stars, and Dean will outshine them all.

********************

Dean really had tried his hand at retirement for a few weeks there. He’d interviewed for a job. He’d been given a salary offer to go home and think about. He’d started filling out the paperwork to open up a bank account in his and Cas’ made-up identities’ names. He’d thought idly about what he and Cas would do with his corporate-mandated vacation time. Like, maybe they’d get started on seeing Cas’ favourite parts of the world before he died, even. Dean had bought a _watch_. 

He’d signed the salary offer and started the drive out to Lebanon and turned back to the bunker, all in seven minutes. 

And maybe one day he'd try it again and try it proper, but getting in his car, driving on the empty road, he’d realised that he still wanted to save people. He wanted out of the life, but that didn’t mean he had to stop hunting. He could find a balance, and he's _not_ gonna let any other kid end up like him. And maybe if there’s some big werewolf pack or vampire nest then he might send someone else to handle it. But the little things, the ghosts and the shifters and the weird cursed amulets? Those could be his things, now. 

When they ask, Dean tells people he’s semi-retired. He keeps the watch. He doesn’t wear it because he doesn’t want to run about with ectoplasm or whatever congealing under the band because he forgot to clean under it. But it’s motivational. Aspirational. He thinks about giving it to Cas to look after in the meantime but it feels too much like he’d been giving him kind of a weird promise ring, and he’s not some fucking teenage girl. Plus, Dean doesn’t know if Cas wears his vessel when he goes to hang out with the stars and deep sea monsters and shit but if he does the watch would probably break or explode or something that would be an equally bad omen if Dean is projecting any notions of the future onto it. 

He still hunts with Sam, sometimes, when they’re both not busy doing other shit. It’s _fun_. It’s just like old times. _Old_ old times, before demons and apocalypses and all of the angels except for one very specific one; maybe two if Dean’s feeling particularly generous. Just him and Sammy, Baby, and the open road. The thrill of the hunt, and the satisfaction of a job well done when they ganked whatever son of a bitch was terrorising the good and sometimes bad folk of Normalsville, Indiana. 

After, they’ll stop in at a bar for a drink, maybe hustle a bit at pool just to keep the skills fresh, even though Sam and Eileen both have part-time jobs that pay them in real actual money, and between Charlie and Cas any financial issues Dean might have are irrelevant. Dean riles up douchbags who think they can cheat him out of the money he’s owed, and awkwardly turns down girls who hit on him. 

It’s not exactly hard to say no thanks, because he has Cas and there’s literally no one and nothing he wants more. But. He’s never really spent a lot of time turning down sex before, and every time he has to fight down the instinct to wink, to flash a smile that has just the hint of ‘maybe if you keep trying I’ll give in’. Back then, it had been the only comfort he knew; anonymous sex with girls who never treated him as kindly as he had wanted, but only because he had never been brave enough to ask it from them. He’d tried to show them, touch them gently, skimming fingertips and soft puffs of breath and they’d gone harder, faster, I’m not some delicate flower you have to look after, and there had been nothing for Dean to do but scoff and shake his head and pretend it was what he wanted too, that he had just been doing it for _them_. 20-something chicks don’t go looking for late-night bar hookups because they want kindness.

And Sam smiles a lot, every time Dean tells some fuckwit to stick his pool cue where the sun don’t shine, every time Dean stammers over a girl. Smiles more than Dean has seen him smile since before Dean sold his soul. Hell, since before that day at Cold Oak, when he died for the very first time. Sam _laughs_ , and it’s the same laugh that Dean remembers from when Sammy used to put itching powder in his pants and glue his hand to his beer bottle. And when Dean slides into Baby to drive them both home and all his cassettes have mysteriously found their way to the back seat and they end up having to listen to _talk radio_ , Dean only drives off and leaves Sam at the next gas station they stop at for about half an hour before he turns around to get him, because it’s just so nice having his little brother back.

Sometimes, when Sam is busy, he hunts with Bobby or Jody or any of the number of other hunters that call him up and ask for a hand. With Aaron and his golem. One memorable time with Crowley, when there was some supposedly big-name demon that Dean had never heard of gunning for the throne and he had thought, well, better the King of Hell you know. And he doesn’t trust Crowley as far as he can throw him, but at least he knows how far that is. So he and Crowley met at some sleazy upscale bar Dean wouldn’t have been allowed in by himself, and Crowley had asked him about Cas a truly worrying number of times, and Dean had only been sure for about five minutes that it was all an elaborate trap for him when they caught up to the demon they were hunting. In the end Crowley had shot her with the gun Dean had dropped in the ensuing fight, and then had tried to talk him into heading out to a quieter bar together, and maybe Dean could give Cas a call and invite him to join them. If Dean didn’t know how much of a bastard Crowley was, he’d almost say he saw a flicker of disappointment in his eyes when he turned him down. Then Crowley had whistled as if to a dog, and Dean didn’t know if she was even there or if Crowley was just getting back at him for turning him down, but he flinched despite it having been years, a _lifetime_ , really, since he was ripped apart by hellhounds. So he didn’t feel the slightest bit bad about sending Crowley back to hell sober. 

Sometimes, when it’s an unexpectedly difficult hunt, he’s even been known to call up Balthazar on the heavenly hotline. Which is– Dean wouldn’t say he _enjoys_ it, because he and Balthazar don’t exactly get along, except that they also kind of get along really well. Dean likes him about half the time - when he isn’t dropping incredibly unsubtle hints that he and Cas, like, angel-fucked. Dean knows they didn’t because Cas _doesn’t_ , angel or otherwise, but Cas is fond of Balthazar in a way he likes very few others. And Dean _knows_ that Cas is never going to leave him, not of his own volition, because Dean saw the worst possible future; where the Devil won and Cas fell for _nothing_ , not even a kind word, but just so that he could be wherever Dean was. So he never worries about Cas abandoning him like he does with literally everyone else, and even though Cas does leave sometimes Dean knows he’s going to come back because there’s nothing out there in existence that he wants more than Dean’s safety and happiness; not revenge, an education, a normal life, not anything that everyone has always chosen before Dean. But, it’s still so hard to convince the little four year old boy that was left behind by his father in a motel room that he can be _sure_ of it. There’ll probably always be a part of Dean that cries out every time anyone he loves isn’t in direct eyesight or at least under the same roof. But he is trying. 

Anyway, he’s tempted to stick Balthazar in a sensitive place with an angel blade at least half the time, but the other half, the dude is more than happy to gossip about the infinite time of angel shit; and he never skips on any of the sex and violence, and he has seriously unflattering opinions on basically every historical figure. Dean likes to wait until Sam is relaxed and feeling pretty good with his place in the world to tell him bizarre shit like how the angel who designed the oarfish had sneezed in the middle of Creation and that’s why it’s so stupidly and impractically long. And then the angel couldn’t be bothered to fix it, so they stuck the poor oarfish in the deep sea in the hope that no one would notice it; and maybe there is no cosmic order in the universe if some animals just exist because of accidents and laziness. He also likes to sneak up on Kevin when he’s doing homework for his university course - because the fucking nerd still wants to get his degree even though he’s a prophet that receives divine communication and could probably make a living just predicting every future major event before someone burnt him as a witch or whatever - and give him the explicit sexual history of whichever dead mathematician developed the equation he is working on that day. 

And he couldn’t do any of that without Balthazar shooting the shit with him while they’re waiting for a demon to show up or something equally boring, which is why he’s the only other angel Dean wouldn’t stab on sight.

But mostly, Dean hunts with Cas. And the thing is, Cas is smart. Real smart. Even if it’s only by sheer virtue of, like, existing forever, Cas has got more facts bumping about in that noggin than anyone Dean knows. He likes books and relaxing in the bunker’s library, but Dean has a sneaking suspicion that Cas likes to just _look_ at books more than he likes to read them. He bets that if he asked, Cas would have a favourite font but not a favourite novel. He's really more of a TV guy; and Dean knows he’s led armies, and he _doesn’t_ know if angels have brains in the traditional sense, but whatever Cas has got, it’s always whirring away with plans on top of plans on top of strategies to get every single one of them through whichever dumb mistake they make next. So Cas is _briliant_ , eons of knowledge pretending to be some guy in this 30s in an ill-fitting suit, but put a problem in front of him and his first instinct is to try and brute force his way through. And he’s honestly pretty shit at the whole research part of the hunt, interviewing a witness, building a case, but point him at some dick who’s hurting people and it’s hardly a fair fight. 

A man after Dean’s own heart.

So it’s just him and Cas. Saving people. Hunting things. The family business. _Their_ family business. Sam and Eileen and Bobby and everyone else’s too, but– Theirs. Him and Cas. It’s fucking heady just saying it. Sam and Bobby, Charlie and Jody and Kevin and everyone else, they’re family. But Cas is _his_ family. 

And sometimes, before, it felt like his life had been nothing but shitty diners with those sickly halogen lights that aren’t quite bright enough to comfortably read a menu by, and shittier vending machines at roadside hotels that have probably never seen a full-time cleaner. Just abandoned factories and rundown churches and that old, rickety house on the hill that no one wants to go near because they _know_ it’s haunted. Just places without life or hope. Monster caves in the forest and his hands caked in grave dirt, deep under his nails, so heavy and so thick it’s like the grey had settled in underneath his skin, never washed out, leaving his fingerprints like stains on everything he touched. 

But _now_. Now it is always, _always_ the smell of gasoline and tar and endless, open fields, dried and dusty from the sun. It’s Zeppelin on the tape deck and the wind ruffling his hair through Baby’s open window. And it’s an angel in the passenger seat, holding his hand.

********************

Dean lets his head loll to the side, his cheek settling on the arm he has stretched out across the back of the couch, fingertips brushing at Cas’ shoulder. There's some pawn shop show on the TV that Dean had been staring blankly at for the past five minutes, but Cas is already looking at him so he clearly wasn’t even pretending to watch. “How long?” Dean says.

He doesn’t finish the question. It’s a difficult thing to ask, and it’s difficult for him to admit that he wants to know. “How long has it been?” Or; “how long have you loved me?” How long has Dean been loved the way that Cas loves him? What can Cas’ love endure?

It’s a difficult thing for Dean to hear the answer to. Because Cas is so fucking earnest. Because for all that Dean would say that Cas' default state is ‘grumpy’ or maybe ‘solemn’, he can be just inhumanly romantic when given the opportunity. Not that Cas is _a romantic_ , because he really fucking isn’t. He’s never bought Dean flowers or heart-shaped chocolates or any of that shit. He just doesn’t know any better.

Dean’s used to temporary hookups in temporary rooms, dirty talk that’s as hot as it is nonsensical and maybe, if he’s lucky, a firm pat on the chest and a “good job”.

Cas cups his face and rubs his thumb across his cheekbone and says shit like “stars _died_ to make you, Dean Winchester”; about how he would hardly consider it a sacrifice if they were all to flicker out just so he could have Dean near. 

Dean doesn’t even know what to _do_ with that. It’s like Cas can't see the way it makes Dean’s heart practically seize up in his chest, a physical pain. The way he can hardly control the urge to just _weep_ with it. And it’s not that he doesn’t like it, because it touches the very centre of him; it’s just overwhelming. He can’t take it too often. Humans aren’t supposed to hear about the kind of fucking cosmic-level love that Cas talks about so easily outside of like poetry or metaphors or whatever. When Cas says stars died to make him, Dean’s pretty sure that Cas means he literally destroyed stars to raise Dean from the dead.

And maybe, Dean likes to hear about it _too much_. Like it’s his own little drug that he can pop whenever he really needs it. And he needs it now; because they don’t have days in hell, not really, but Dean still knows the exact moment that he broke on the rack. And he needs to hear that Cas loves him. So he doesn’t ask about it, and he doesn’t say what he means, he doesn’t finish the question, but Cas knows anyway.

Cas tilts his head. It was his very first human gesture, and Dean is inordinately fond of it. “Angels don’t experience time the way that humans do. You must know that by now.” He says slowly, carefully. “The future is uncertain, but the past and the present are one in the same.”

“How long, Cas?” Because Cas is often accused of being too blunt or too literal, but he is remarkably good at talking around a topic and leaving you forgetting you asked a question if Dean lets him get away with it. 

“Not since the beginning.” His voice is still low and slow, almost placating, as if he’s worried that his intensity is going to make Dean freak out. It does freak him out. He fucking _loves_ it. “Back then, I was not capable.” Cas says. “But from the second that I touched your soul in hell, then it had been always.”

Dean turns his head back so he’s looking at the screen. Lets that stew for a moment, the sound of some asshole insisting that his fake collectors edition tin lunchbox is definitely real screaming over the silence. “It hasn’t been as long for me.” It’s not his best joke but Cas still lets out a little huff of a laugh and Dean instantly regrets not watching it happen. He looks over again, and Cas is wearing a smile that’s nothing but fond.

“I wouldn’t expect it to have been. I am _much_ older than you. We are probably “creepy” by your human standards.”

Dean wishes he didn’t find Cas hilarious. Because no one else would laugh at Cas’ straightforward delivery, his finger quotes. No one else would even recognise that he was trying to be funny, and everyone can tell how whipped Dean is that he does. “That’s a lot, man.” He says.

Cas shrugs. It’s a more recent human gesture he’s picked up, a little stiff, a little jerky, like invisible puppet strings have been attached to his shoulders and then yanked straight up and released just as quickly. He hasn’t quite settled into it yet. But Dean plans on living a long, long life, so Cas will have plenty of time to practice any human gestures he wants. “Not really.” He replies. “It’s both a second, and since the beginning of time."

“That’s–“ Dean starts, stops, swallows. “That’s not as comforting as you think it is.” But even as he says it, Dean finds that it’s not quite true. It does help. Because Dean _understands_ what he means. Because even when Cas is being all vast and unknowable and speaking about infinity as easily as Sam would talk about yesterday, Dean has always understood him. 

There’s a secret part that Dean hoards in his heart that is so, so _sure_ that when Cas raised him from hell, he made him - just a little - in his own image. Not in God’s, because angels were never that. His. He's _sure_ that Cas put a little bit of himself into Dean, that Cas made them of the same stuff. That Dean _is_ Cas, in some small and fundamental way. Like that Greek story about souls being split in half, except that Cas made them that way, not fate or destiny or any of that bullshit.

And that’s why Dean can get so mad at him for so long, the way that he can only hate himself. Because he and Cas are the same. And it’s also why Dean has always tried to get so _close_ ; whether to return that part Cas gave him or to take a bit more, greedy and lonely and desperately wanting connection, he can’t say.

“Don’t think about it too hard.” Cas says, and he smiles, and Dean gets the distinct impression that he’s teasing him. Sometimes Cas still doesn’t get teasing, but sometimes he gets it all too well. “And be quiet. The X-Files is about to start.” 

Dean laughs. “Sure, buddy.” He swivels back to the screen as the synth starts up its little whistling tune. Privately, Dean thinks all his hunts would be at least 50% creepier if the X-Files theme was playing in the background. He also thinks that Cas has a bit of a thing for Agent Scully, which, he can’t exactly blame him. Fucking, who doesn’t? Cas may not be human, but he’s got _that_ part of the human experience down pat.

Cas reaches up with one hand and hooks his fingers together with Dean’s, pulls Dean’s hand down so his palm rests properly on his shoulder. Cas’ hair brushes against his arm as he turns his head to press a lingering kiss to Dean’s knuckles, the back of his hand; his lips stopping there, soft on Dean's skin. Dean slips his thumb free to rub along Cas’ jawline, and he feels Cas breathe out his nose, slow and steady, against his wrist.

**Author's Note:**

> It’s not really relevant to this fic, except in the sense that it is always relevant when I'm talking about him, but Cas is asexual. He simply is.


End file.
